Leaders of the CIS countries got into a huddle at the initiative of Russian President Vladimir Putin in Saint Petersburg on Tuesday to discuss topical issues of multilateral cooperation, majorly on putting up a united fight against the Covid-19 pandemic.

The traditional informal meeting was attended by heads of states from Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.  

The leaders of the Commonwealth countries summarised the main results of the year and exchanged views on priorities for cooperation.

Putin, in his speech during the event, focused on intensifying the joint action against Covid-19 pandemic.

The Russian President had also invited country's Chief Sanitary Doctor Anna Yurievna Popova to the meeting to make a presentation on how the countries can overcome the situation together.

"All countries of the world are faced with it, and this has serious consequences in the economic sphere, in the social sphere. But we, while retaining the opportunities and competitive advantages that we inherited from the past, are able to overcome these difficulties even better than in many other countries of the world," said Putin.

Popova highlighted the need to build a unified regional system of measures aimed at the development of scientific research, mutual assistance and exchange of technologies and development results.

Russia is currently in 94th place in the world in terms of the number of Covid-19 cases per 100 thousand of the population.

In a bid to build a unified infrastructure in a common epidemiological space, Russia will also be co-financing creation of centers in CIS countries by 2025. The centres will become the most modern facilities for supporting research in the field of biological safety, training national personnel, and developing diagnostic and treatment tools.

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